Reborn as a comedy with Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum playing cops going undercover in a high school to root out a deadly drug-dealing business, “21 Jump Street” was pretty darn funny, the leads showing an unexpected chemistry together and the writing rising above what you typically find in today’s R-rated comedies.

With sequel “22 Jump Street” — which sees the stars returning along with directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller — the powers that be make it clear they did not want to reinvent the “Jump Street” wheel. The very meta script makes constant references to things being the same as they were last time — only with more money behind the effort, as if that in itself will lead to better results. On the surface, the cops are talking about a new case, but it’s a big wink-wink, a fun one at that.

And that’s what “22 Jump Street” is: More of the fun you had the last time, if maybe just slightly less of it.

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Bungling police partners Jenko (Channing Tatum), the dumb, athletic one, and Schmidt (Hill), the unathletic, supposedly smart one, are at first saddled with the assignment of watching online college lectures looking for coded messages. This is not what they had in mind when their captain, Dickson (a continuously funny Ice Cube, who also was in the first movie), told them they’d be going to college for their next assignment.

However, when a deadly drug that gives users the ability to first focus for hours and then party for a few more starts killing kids at a local college, they do in fact go undercover as students. Posing again as brothers, they get a dorm room together and are immediately out of place. (There are constant jokes this time about how they look way too old to be in school.)

There is one different twist this time around: Whereas Jenko didn’t fit in with the cool kids in high school and fell in with the nerds, at college he makes an instant bromantic connection with the football team’s star quarterback, Zook (Wyatt Russell). Even as Zook becomes a suspect in the case, Jenko falls more in love with his football-fueled college experience, which drives a wedge between him and Schmidt.

Schmidt, meanwhile, has more trouble finding his niche this time, but he does make a hook-up with a beautiful girl, Maya (Amber Stevens). Schmidt clashes with Maya’s roommate, Mercedes (Jillian Bell of Comedy Central’s “Workaholics”), who makes several jokes about his old face that are pretty funny. But someone else in Maya’s life will prove to be a bigger problem for Schmidt.

Really, though, “22 Jump Street” is, like its predecessor, all about the bromance between Schmidt and Jenko. It gets a little tiring watching them fall out of — and then back into — guy love again, but at least Tatum and Hill continue to be a blast together. And while Hill brings exactly what you’d expect to the affairs, Tatum is just funnier than you’d think he could be. You get the sense the actors really enjoy making these movies.

Likewise, Lord and Miller seem to be having fun behind the camera, having things needlessly blow up regularly and keeping things moving along nicely.

There’s a little bit of a falloff in the writing, with only Michael Bacall returning from “21 Jump Street.” Still, he, Oren Uziel and Rodney Rothman do a solid job with the self-aware script and keep us laughing, even if they do overdo the bromance stuff.

Plan to stay through much of the end credits, which come with a montage about follow-up adventures — “23 Jump Street,” “24 Jump Street,” etc. — and a couple of nice cameos.

Time will tell whether we’ll get an actual “23 Jump Street,” but the guess here is yes. For players involved to stop making these movies now would be the real shock.

About the Author

Mark is a lifelong Northeast Ohioan and an Ohio University grad. Along with loving music, movies and television, he is crazy about sports and tech. Reach the author at mmeszoros@news-herald.com
or follow Mark on Twitter: @MarkMeszoros.